Page 26 of Fractured Souls

I really enjoy cooking in here. There have been a few times that I have taken advantage of how much space there is, and the double ovens we have to bake a lot of sweets. It’s a nice stress reliever. As I'm finishing up cooking, Ryker comes stumbling in still half asleep and makes a beeline for the coffee pot. Shortly after, Rage, Noah, Cade, and Sugar come in.

“Wow, smells good, brother. Did you make all this?” Noah asks, glancing at all the food laid out. I kind of went overboard and made eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, and french toast.

I shrug and give a tiny smile, gesturing for everyone to make themselves a plate.

After we eat in uncomfortable silence, with everyone just seeming to want to hurry up and get this over with. Rage clears his throat. “Everyone, my office, thirty minutes.”

Everyone nods and heads off to do whatever they need to do before the meeting.

Since I made breakfast, the club girls will clean up everything, so I wave for Cade and Ryker to follow me.

We head into one of the random offices, and I shut the door behind us. “Ry, I figured we could fill Cade in now on what happened the other day at school when you asked Harley about her voice.”

Cade leans against the desk that’s in here while I sit in the desk chair, and Ry leans against the wall by the door. Cade crosses his arms over his chest and raises a brow at us.

“Right, so when we were standing at Harley’s locker before her math class the other day, I asked her if she had never been able to talk or if she could at one point when she lost her voice and how. She freaked out and started panicking—”

Cade grunts, cutting off anything else Ry was going to say, and pulls out his phone to text us.

Cayden

The first day of school when she came into the office, she opened her mouth like she was going to talk but then shut it. I've always thought that she probably can talk and just is like me and doesn't for whatever reason, so her parents said she was mute.

Before I can say anything, Ry shakes his head. “No, brother. This was raw fear. She was terrified. It was almost as if she was terrified that we would find something out that would get her killed or some shit. Her face paled and she immediately started panicking and trying to get away from us, but Gray stopped her and helped her through the attack.”

I nod. “She didn't even know what was happening. I explained a panic attack to her after, and she looked shocked but then like so many things made sense. She tried to take off after that, but I told her it was okay and she didn't have to tell us anything and then she calmed down. But guys, I think I messed up during math class.”

“How?” Ry asks.

“I told her a tiny bit about me. How I had panic attacks after my brother died. How my parents treated me. I meant to just leave it at that, but it's like I couldn't let this girl keep thinking whatever negative thoughts were going through her head. Her misery was written all over her face. So I told her she didn't have to go through it alone. That there were people there to help her through the darkness and help her to take down her demons, that she just has to trust them to help. She said what if you trust them and they turn out to be bigger monsters, and I told her that I can't answer that but there are people who would ask how high if you asked them to jump. She asked me why, but we didn’t get to talk much more.

“I feel like I pushed it. What if she thinks I am crazy now? I didn't mean to say so much, but it's like I couldn't stop my mouth. I just needed her to understand because it wasn't that long ago that I was hiding and didn't understand I had people, all I had to do was go to them. But just throwing it all at her at once probably terrified her even more and—” I get cut off by Ry squatting down in front of me with a soft smile on his face.

“Gray, breathe. You didn't do anything wrong. You did what we all probably should've done. It's okay. Hell, you were probably the best person to say something like that to her because you do understand. You are amazing at seeing what a person needs to hear and saying it without thought. So stop overthinking this.”

Cade nods his agreement, and I take a breath. It helps when they support me.

“Should we bring this up to Rage?” I ask.

Cade nods, and Ry sighs, “I guess. Sometimes I hate taking things to them because I feel like they are going to shut us out any day now, and we won't know what their plans are, which I want to be involved in when it comes to Harley.”

Wow, I swear every day he is showing more and more that he is falling in love with her. I want to be happy for him, but I am terrified he is going to get hurt or even worse…No, don't go there, Gray.

“I don't think they will cut us off, Ry, but it's important for them to know because her reaction to you asking could mean that things are worse than they seem at home for her.” Ry sighs but nods. We all leave and head towards Rage’s office since it's time to get this meeting going. When we get there, everyone else is also walking in, and we all stand around or take the few empty seats.

The silence is getting weird now. It's giving me the urge to speak, so I take a deep breath and remind myself I'm comfortable with everyone in this office.

I clear my throat. “Maybe we should backtrack and start with when I met with Rage, then work our way through everything in order?” Everyone nods. “Alright, well, I guess that means I'll start.”

I pointedly look at Rage, and he nods, giving me the okay to dive into this.

“So Tuesday night after we all talked, I just felt like we were missing something and things felt off, so I decided to do more of a deep dive with Nerds, and we uncovered a lot. Basically, this operation they are running goes back at least twenty years, if not more. Luckily, they aren't working with any Mafia or gang groups that are around here. It seems they work alone and cater to the wealthy in surrounding areas. The thing is, there is no way they could've just randomly had the money to do all of this. Taking girls, keeping them somewhere, paying hush money, getting them ready, moving them… That all takes a lot of cash. So I dug deeper and found lots of offshore accounts connecting back to a lot of wealthy people; honestly, they made it easy.

“But here's the thing: Rage's dad was involved. Wait!” I say before they can all start going off and getting angry. “There is more. Let me finish and get this all out at once.”

They all nod, so I continue.

“So Rage's dad has been a part of it and had a full group of people working with him. I haven't found out how Tammy and Richard got involved, but Nerds and I are still looking. The weird thing is, everyone we have found connected in some way from the group who ran things before Tammy and Richard took over are dead. We are still looking into it to see if it's a coincidence or not. What makes this worse is that there is an offshore account that is funding everything. The account sends money to Tammy and Richard, and they use it to do everything they need to make their operation work.”

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